What’s going on, folks. I’ve got another request from an IT guy trying to make the transition over to business school and consulting. When I started writing this blog, I had no idea that there were so many people out there who felt similarly stuck in IT like I did. I hope folks are finding these entries useful as guidance for moving out of that trap.
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HK wrote:
“Hey Marquis,
I have been your read for about a year now. You’ve created a fantastic blog! Why don’t you include a counter? I am sure it will show a nice figure.
As I decided to apply for fall 2008 I think it’s time I break my silence and ask some specific questions. Hopefully it won’t make you too busy!
I’ve been working in IT for 5 years now. I feel comfortable in my job and so far I am quite successful. I think the current job matches my skillset and personality quite well. However I am not satisfied that my job is so far away from core business, and I don’t have much hope to improve it if I don’t change my career path now. That’s why I decided to take the MBA and my plan is to do management consulting like you do.
This brings a big question mark, as I am doing quite well now should I make the switch to a new area where I don’t know if it is suitable for me? Having know that you made a similar switch I would like to know if you have similar experience or feeling. Can you share?
Some positive signs are that I like travel, languages, adventures and I have a significant international experience that I’m confident in jobs that require frequent traveling and meeting new people. My current job also requires strong problem solving and logical reasoning skills. But… you know this doesn’t mean everything, especially I’ve never worked in the strategy side of the business. How did you decide that you were interested to do consulting at first? And did you overcome major obstacles to become successful?
Thanks for reading my long email,
HK”
————————
My response:
HK,
What’s going on, man. Thanks for checking out my blog and thinking of me as someone that you’d want to chime in on your situation. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you know that folks stuck in IT are sort of my “specialty”
Now, to the questions from your email…the first big question is about whether you should make the switch to a new career area if you don’t know if it suitable for you. I’m a little confused by whether the core of what you’re wondering about is if you should make a career change when you seem to be doing so well where you are or if you should make a career change to an area that you don’t know anything about. Or, maybe it’s both, so I’ll respond to both questions.
For the first question about whether you should change when you’re doing well, it looks like you answered that question yourself by choosing to pursue an MBA because you felt that your career path was too far away from business. It’s great to do well in tech if that’s where your passion is, but it doesn’t sound like you’re 100% sure of that at the moment. So, you might want to think about how you can leverage your success in your IT career to give you a boost in some other career track. This could come from tailoring your resume to call-out your accomplishments from your pre-MBA career in IT and generalizing your skillset to show that you can excel in a non-IT environment, as well.
The issue of making a career change into an area that you don’t know is a good one, but that is resolved by one of the best features of the business school experience: the summer internship. The summer between your years of business school gives you a chance to test out a particular industry that interests you but that you’ve never had a chance to experience. For now, the best thing you could do is talk to people who work in Consulting to get an idea of their experiences and how much they enjoy the work. Then, once you get to business school, talk to classmates who worked in Consulting and other industries prior to Bschool to get a flavor for what your options are. When the time comes for summer internship recruiting, make a run at consulting firms and any other types of companies that interest you. Once you get your offers, take stock of the type of work that seems the most attractive and then try it out during your summer internship. In some cases, you can do a split summer and try out two different internships to get an idea of what kind of work can fit you. Finally, you can evaluate all of your options when deciding on a full-time post-MBA career to make sure you’re making an informed decision and aren’t going into an industry that you know nothing about. This is only a suggestion, but it might be a good way to proceed.
Your other question was about my switch, so here’s what i was thinking at the time. I had decided on both Consulting and McKinsey before i even thought about applying to business school and chose to apply as a means to getting there. When I first honed in on Consulting as a possible career target, it was because of the variety of work that I’d be able to do…I was bored out of my mind sitting behind a computer writing code and Consulting seemed to be a polar opposite to that. I was attracted to McK because of its reputation for producing strong business leaders. So, when I started applying to business schools, I had those career goals embedded in my brain.
Going into the consulting internship interviews, I thought I was disadvantaged because I had no business experience/understanding and my work experience seemed lacking as compared to my classmates. I tried to account for it by figuring out how to relate my technical background to consulting and practicing the cases as much as I could. I was somewhat successful, but not successful enough because I doubted myself too much during that summer recruiting season and didn’t spend enough time preparing myself for the battle that was the pursuit of the internship (read some of my January and February 2005 entries for more info on that).
For full-time recruiting, I walked in KNOWING that I was a great candidate and it made a world of difference. Also, I’d finished my first year of Bschool and trained myself to understand how to think in terms of the “so what” implications of business, so my case game had no choice but to get tight. Plus, I’d done so many cases while I was interviewing for summer internships that I knew how to do cases inside and out…Practice makes perfect when it comes to those cases. To summarize, I’d recommend that you focus on three things to be successful at your consulting interviews: understanding business, practicing the mechanics of a case interview, and raising your confidence to the level that you KNOW that no one can fade you. If you do those three things, I bet you’d be cool as a fan as you’re going through the process.
Take care and good luck with your upcoming business school applications
-Marquis
————————
HK wrote:
“Hey Marquis,
I have been your read for about a year now. You’ve created a fantastic blog! Why don’t you include a counter? I am sure it will show a nice figure.
As I decided to apply for fall 2008 I think it’s time I break my silence and ask some specific questions. Hopefully it won’t make you too busy!
I’ve been working in IT for 5 years now. I feel comfortable in my job and so far I am quite successful. I think the current job matches my skillset and personality quite well. However I am not satisfied that my job is so far away from core business, and I don’t have much hope to improve it if I don’t change my career path now. That’s why I decided to take the MBA and my plan is to do management consulting like you do.
This brings a big question mark, as I am doing quite well now should I make the switch to a new area where I don’t know if it is suitable for me? Having know that you made a similar switch I would like to know if you have similar experience or feeling. Can you share?
Some positive signs are that I like travel, languages, adventures and I have a significant international experience that I’m confident in jobs that require frequent traveling and meeting new people. My current job also requires strong problem solving and logical reasoning skills. But… you know this doesn’t mean everything, especially I’ve never worked in the strategy side of the business. How did you decide that you were interested to do consulting at first? And did you overcome major obstacles to become successful?
Thanks for reading my long email,
HK”
————————
My response:
HK,
What’s going on, man. Thanks for checking out my blog and thinking of me as someone that you’d want to chime in on your situation. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you know that folks stuck in IT are sort of my “specialty”
Now, to the questions from your email…the first big question is about whether you should make the switch to a new career area if you don’t know if it suitable for you. I’m a little confused by whether the core of what you’re wondering about is if you should make a career change when you seem to be doing so well where you are or if you should make a career change to an area that you don’t know anything about. Or, maybe it’s both, so I’ll respond to both questions.
For the first question about whether you should change when you’re doing well, it looks like you answered that question yourself by choosing to pursue an MBA because you felt that your career path was too far away from business. It’s great to do well in tech if that’s where your passion is, but it doesn’t sound like you’re 100% sure of that at the moment. So, you might want to think about how you can leverage your success in your IT career to give you a boost in some other career track. This could come from tailoring your resume to call-out your accomplishments from your pre-MBA career in IT and generalizing your skillset to show that you can excel in a non-IT environment, as well.
The issue of making a career change into an area that you don’t know is a good one, but that is resolved by one of the best features of the business school experience: the summer internship. The summer between your years of business school gives you a chance to test out a particular industry that interests you but that you’ve never had a chance to experience. For now, the best thing you could do is talk to people who work in Consulting to get an idea of their experiences and how much they enjoy the work. Then, once you get to business school, talk to classmates who worked in Consulting and other industries prior to Bschool to get a flavor for what your options are. When the time comes for summer internship recruiting, make a run at consulting firms and any other types of companies that interest you. Once you get your offers, take stock of the type of work that seems the most attractive and then try it out during your summer internship. In some cases, you can do a split summer and try out two different internships to get an idea of what kind of work can fit you. Finally, you can evaluate all of your options when deciding on a full-time post-MBA career to make sure you’re making an informed decision and aren’t going into an industry that you know nothing about. This is only a suggestion, but it might be a good way to proceed.
Your other question was about my switch, so here’s what i was thinking at the time. I had decided on both Consulting and McKinsey before i even thought about applying to business school and chose to apply as a means to getting there. When I first honed in on Consulting as a possible career target, it was because of the variety of work that I’d be able to do…I was bored out of my mind sitting behind a computer writing code and Consulting seemed to be a polar opposite to that. I was attracted to McK because of its reputation for producing strong business leaders. So, when I started applying to business schools, I had those career goals embedded in my brain.
Going into the consulting internship interviews, I thought I was disadvantaged because I had no business experience/understanding and my work experience seemed lacking as compared to my classmates. I tried to account for it by figuring out how to relate my technical background to consulting and practicing the cases as much as I could. I was somewhat successful, but not successful enough because I doubted myself too much during that summer recruiting season and didn’t spend enough time preparing myself for the battle that was the pursuit of the internship (read some of my January and February 2005 entries for more info on that).
For full-time recruiting, I walked in KNOWING that I was a great candidate and it made a world of difference. Also, I’d finished my first year of Bschool and trained myself to understand how to think in terms of the “so what” implications of business, so my case game had no choice but to get tight. Plus, I’d done so many cases while I was interviewing for summer internships that I knew how to do cases inside and out…Practice makes perfect when it comes to those cases. To summarize, I’d recommend that you focus on three things to be successful at your consulting interviews: understanding business, practicing the mechanics of a case interview, and raising your confidence to the level that you KNOW that no one can fade you. If you do those three things, I bet you’d be cool as a fan as you’re going through the process.
Take care and good luck with your upcoming business school applications
-Marquis
Great post Marquis! helpful as usual!